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Has anyone here on this forum own a C-band dish? Tell your memories here!

C

crainbebo

I was just wondering, since it's so old, has anyone owned a C-band dish and used it?

In the 80s, many people owned C-band dishes to recieve cable TV and networks on a BIG, HUGE satellite. It always took a LONG time to move the dish, which was probably a thousand pounds. My family has memories of recieving weird stuff from other countries on those satellites, like France and Italy. My mother also has memories of driving around and seeing C-band dishes in the 80s. So, have you ever owned a C-band dish.? If so, tell your memories here!

-crainbebo
 
First, a few corrections:

1. The BUD (Big Ugly Dish) used the same sized satts as the pizza dishes but they had far less power (hence the need for bigger receiving antennas) and were analog (24 C-band transponders and/or 36 Ku-band transponders).

2. The most popular types were metal wire mesh and metal-encased fiberglass. They ranged in size from 2 to 4 meters (6 to 12 feet approximately) and could be placed in position by one good-sized man (weight of a 3 meter wire dish was about 35 pounds and about 50 pounds for the fiberglass).

3. Moving from the east stop to the west stop took approximately one minute but normally the programming was on adjacent satts so movement was much quicker than that, usually only a few seconds. Horizon-to-horizon dishes took a few seconds longer since they had a larger arc.

4. Most were installed in rural areas where space wasn't a problem and cable hadn't yet reached.

From the late 70's through the mid-90's transmissions were largely analog, and in the very early days unencrypted. During the mid-90's the change to digital (Digicipher) was made and analog used only for back and live feeds. Today there are very few analog feeds (from the USA and Canada) left.

The primary advantages of the BUD:

1. Programmers were plentiful and it was possible to subscribe to encrypted programming ala carte. This was usually much cheaper than the tiered scheme currently in use by DISH and DirecTV.

2. Picture quality and audio were the best on the air. Far better than cable and much better than compressed digital from the pizza pan programmers.

3. Unlike the pizza pans, except for the very worst storms, the BUD was unaffected by weather (so long as you kept the dish free of snow buildup).

4. Depending upon your location you could receive programming from all over North America and Europe as well as backfeeds (usually live sports or news) not available to the normal home viewer.

The BUD did have a few disadvantages:

1. It was expensive. A normal 3-meter analog antenna, cabling and receiver ran from $1,500-$2,500 (plus installation).

2. Some maintenance was required as the dish tended to stray from original position with age and wind.

3. Since there was only one receiver only one transponder (channel) could be viewed at a time. It was possible to connect multiple receivers to one dish but that only increased channel viewing slightly as the BUD used a polarizer and only those channels on the current satt polarity could be viewed simultaneously.

4. Not all homes had the space necessary for such a large dish. HOA's generally objected to them and some BUD's used disguises such as patio furniture.

I built, yes built, my first 3-meter dish in 1988 and used it until just a few years ago. It was a lot of fun and quite an education but the complexity of using the dish (even with a very user-friendly remote) was totally lost on my wife and kids so I became the "remote" anytime they wanted to watch. After the change to digital and the loss of ala carte subscriptions I went back to using it for hobby mode and bought a subscription to DirecTV for the rest of the family.

It still sits in my back yard and is still operational. So is another just down the street.
 
I first started using a BUD C-Band system in the early nineties, and finally retired it just a couple years ago.

I enjoyed the ability to subscribe to individual channels on an a la carte basis -- doing this, I was paying $60 to $80 per year for programming. Unfortunately, as programming went from analog to digital, the programming networks negotiated contracts that generally precluded offering their programming a la carte on reasonable terms, so I finally didn't bother to renew what little was left two years ago.

I also enjoyed the ability to receive "wild feeds" of syndicated and network shows before they aired. In the early to mid-nineties, I'd have a group of friends over each Saturday and we'd watch the episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" that was scheduled to air the *following* Saturday. Very cool. But most syndicated programming is now delivered digitally in formats that can't be picked up by the home dish owner.

Then there was the foreign programming. At one time, I could receive rebroadcasts of stations from Mexico City and St. John (Newfoundland, Canada). It was an interesting look into the domestic programming of areas far from where I live.

There were also the miscellaneous things that would appear -- tuning by a satellite transponder and seeing a reporter for a local TV station standing blankly in front of a camera, waiting for the start of their live report and that sort of thing...
 
Never owned one but got to play with one working at a TV station in the 90s. NBC and Fox was still unscrambled. Saw Mexico and a French language station from Montreal
 
Isn't Montreal CBFT Ch. 2?

-crainbebo
 
Never owned a BUD, but knew a couple guys who did over the years...

One of the most fun aspects of those things was seeing things not meant for broadcast. If you tuned into a live news remote, chances are the feed was hot on a constant basis, even though the reporter might only be actually doing brief reports every few minutes. In-between, you could see what was happening in the background, hear the techies and talent discussing things (both related to the live shot and, more often, not) or, if you were lucky, catch a vain reporter having a hissy fit over something. This held for both local and network news shows; one dish owner told me that he had seen live feeds of quite a few Jane Pauley remotes during Today, and said that while she was all sweetness and light on-air, she was quite the potty-mouthed bi*ch when off...

Likewise the live feeds of things like The Tonight Show. As the show was fed live to NY for taping, the commercials had not yet been added, so whenever Johnny said "we'll be right back," viewers of the not-for-broadcast feed got to watch the activity in the studio during the "break." It's said that Carson often did "bluer" material for the studio audience during those breaks that he could not have done on the air. I've also heard that, eventually, Johnny caught on to the fact that there were some dish owners who were watching the live feed of the show, and would jokingly reference them in the breaks.

Similarly, backfeeds of live sporting events such as football games had hot cams and mikes during what normal viewers saw as commercial breaks (the spots being fed from the network, not from the remote unit at whatever stadium the game was being played). At first, the announcers were oblivious to the fact that a handful of "normal" people were able to listen in, and there were quite a few incidents of announcers saying dirty or embarrassing things during the breaks. Then the networks got wise and muted the audio on the live feed during the breaks, spoiling the fun. :(
 
Had my first job during high school in the early 80's installing c-band dishes. I lived in a very rural area of Texas so cable was not an option for folks living there and business was booming for a while. As stations becan scrambling signals (and then the oil bust of 86) the demand began to dry up but it was a fun ride while it lasted.

My parents had a 3 meter (10 ft) dish. As mentioned previously, the best part of having one was the ability to catch 'wild feeds'. You would often catch an anchor smoking during the commerical break (that happened on CNN a lot as I recall), or sometimes anchors losing it on air (I'm sure by now everyone has seen Bill O' Rielly's Inside Edition moment), stuff like that happened quite often if you knew which feeds to watch.

Back then you also had superstations, the actual local channel and not a national feed. The local commercials on WSBK, WOR, and KTVT were often more entertaining than the programs that they ran.

Ah, the good ol days of the wild west of satellite TV.
 
c-band and k/u free to air (FTA)are very much still active.
 
I had a big C-band dish for a couple of years from 1997 to 1999 -- I got to watch many of the wild feeds (such as "Jeopardy!", two days in advance) and even clean network feeds. The biggest draw for me were the Mexican stations and the CBC / SRC channels. I got rid of it after I got an ExpressVu gray market subscription.

Scotpfv said:
The local commercials on WSBK, WOR, and KTVT were often more entertaining than the programs that they ran.
Click to expand...

In some cases, I like watching the news on these stations, as I was curious about what's going on outside my area.

And don't knock the programs -- (W)WOR was notorious for Joe Franklin.

Guy Betten said:
c-band and k/u free to air (FTA)are very much still active.
Click to expand...

Though these days, they're once again mainly in the domain of the techies, just like the early days of the big dishes, as everyone needing satellite now has a commercial service like DirecTV or Dish Network. Generally, the non-"geeks" that still use the big dishes are those seeking foreign programming, religious channels, or of course, RTV.
 
I saw Sam Donaldson just sitting at an anchor desk. Shepherd's Chapel was on 24/7, there were 30 million shopping channels..I could go on. The French station from Montreal normally wasn't seen in the clear. One of the satellites had issues so broadcasters were scrambling to find alternates, so they were in the clear for awhile. Was interesting to watch the Blues Brothers movie in French "L'Jake, Le Elwood!" as well as the Adam West Batman, Looney tunes and bunches of other American shows. Once we at the station had our descrambler go down, so CBS had to feed us programming in the clear. You would still find some CBS feeds in the clear.

Yeah, watch Jeopardy! early, watch it with friends on TV and you already know all the answers
 
gr8oldies said:
The French station from Montreal normally wasn't seen in the clear. One of the satellites had issues so broadcasters were scrambling to find alternates, so they were in the clear for awhile.
Click to expand...

CBFT, the Radio-Canada flagship in Montreal, was unscrmabled in analog for a few months in 1997, from when I first got my dish until they moved to digital. (Same for CBC Newsworld.) As far as I know, I did not see CTV and TVA, and Global was scrambled (except for late at night, when they ran test transmissions and wild feeds for its affiliates).
 
I've just in the last year gotten into Ku-Band as a supplement to Time Warner Cable here in the Canton, Ohio area..Took a few weeks to really get it going..The main things I watch are RTV, Ohio News Network and Gospel Music Television Network..There are still some network feeds..Lots of wild feeds (especially news) if one knows where to look..I live in a residential neighborhood and put the dish (36") and a motor on a pole on which I had Dish and Direct before..Sometimes networks and individual stations are in the clear, but they usually doesnt last long..Its ben fun, but this wouldnt replace regular tv by any means..
 
I had a C and Ku Band BUD between about 1992 and 1997 and it was a lot of fun! Most of the highlights have already been accurately listed - landtuna's description was about the most comprehensive description of what you could find. Personally, I liked the a-la-carte variety offered and the fact that you could pick and choose between providers to save a few bucks here and there. Used to even get the Denver 5 (or 6?) plus PT 24 E and W while living right in the middle of the Salt Lake DMA. Most providers back then preferred to look the other way on the "rights" stuff as long as they could get your money. Who needed Sunday ticket when NFL feeds were in the clear and also available via the 3 same-network affiliates that I got at any one time? It was great.

To me, the most fun sats in the early to mid 1990s were the Canadian ones. You could watch CBC, CTV and others "in the clear" all the time. Also, numerous Canadian FM stations were uplinked onto the Anik satellites. Connect your stereo speakers to the system and voila you were dxing! Tons of wild feeds - including worldwide news organizations beaming to the other side of the world.

Biggest negatives to the BUD involved poor reception when it snowed (you had to brush it out), was windy (you may need to realign it), and if a tree managed to grow into your line of sight. When the leaves grew in, sometimes you'd get 'sparkles' for certain sats. Made me get really good at pruning!

Nonetheless, I got hundreds of channels for a monthly price that was less than half of what TCI was offering back then....for 36 paltry channels.
 
gr8oldies said:
Once we at the station had our descrambler go down, so CBS had to feed us programming in the clear. You would still find some CBS feeds in the clear.
Click to expand...

Was this during CBS' Videocipher I years or after they switched over to the Leitch Viewguard system?

My parents owned a Birdview C-Band dish from about 1985 to 2002 (aside from it being out of service from 95-97 after the dish tipped over). We replaced the birdview reciever and dish electronics with a Houston Tracker VII system about 1988 or 1989.

My favorite pasttime was staying in my parents' room on a Friday night and channel hopping....I would go back and forth on every satellite...this is back in the days when the hit satellites for wild feeds were Westars 4 & 5, Telstar 301/302/303, Spacenet 1 & 2, Galaxy 2, etc. I would flip flop between satellites.....even viewing on occasion the Morelos and Anik satellites to see what was on. My channel hopping would start on Satcom C1, and end on Spacenet 2. I even caught Satcom C4 in its early hours of operation.

Typical habits....viewing the Saturday morning feeds of Star Trek: DS9 and the UPN secondary feeds of Voyager. Plus, in the early days of our BUD, my mother would allow me to stay up late on Friday night to catch the late night feed of "Thundercats" off of (what was then) WOLD Communications' feed on T301 Tr. 9.

Another fun part of having C-Band was viewing what the network's had on their own affiliate feeds. ABC and CBS each had a transponder on Telstar 301 that was used specifically to feed affiliate material. Rarely any network programming on those feeds. In addition ABC had a feed on T302 for programming out of LA. I once caught a live feed of America's Funniest Home Videos (the Saget years), as they taped a $100,000 special edition.

Of course, the downpart was the fact that our dish was prone to lightning strikes. We finally retired the system in 02 after it was found to cost more to restore than it was worth. We went to Dish network a short time later.
 
...one installer I knew circa '89 or '90 always used Dr. Gene Scott's transponder (always in the clear, natch) during a system setup. Considering how heavily religio-conservative an area of Wisconsin he worked in, I wonder if he escaped from all of his installments unscathed ;-) ...
 
We got a free c band dish from usa network, and used it for many radio programs including the 1985 Superbowl from cbs radio - that we SOLD ads in. CBS did give us permission.
 
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